A BAU Christmas
by Vanessa S. Quest
Summary: Part 8 in the Threads in the Darkness cowrite with IcePrince, the BAU takes a break from cases to celebrate XMas BAU style.


**A BAU Christmas, Part 1**

They could hear the giggles and what sounded like the start of World War III come from the technical analyst's bunker.

"Give them ten, then we need to get started on the consult." Hotch gave JJ a short grin and a headshake. He continued up to his office as she ducked into Garcia's lair.

"What in the world are you two doing?"

Prentiss looked intensely guilty but covered it with a grin. She pushed back her hair, swore to herself that she'd cut it and turned to JJ. "Secret Santa list. I refuse to let Garcia cheat this year."

"Oh man not again, this year!" JJ did a fake pout, but pulled up a chair to be in on it.

"It's BAU tradition." Garcia said as wisely as her wide grin would let her.

"I just never got over the edible underwear that Morgan got me that year." JJ groaned.

"How do you know it was Morgan? -Could have been Rossi or Reid." Prentiss offered.

"You're kidding right…?" She stopped, "Well I always assumed."

"See, see," Garcia enthused. "Dave might have done it."

"Oh God, imagine if it had been Hotch…" Prentiss laughed.

"Don't even go there. Besides I knew who he got that year." JJ laughed and put a finger to the side of her nose.

"You do? Do tell. Please."

"Never, I was on my honor."

"Spoil-sport," Prentiss laughed but would remind herself later to get it out of JJ at some vulnerable moment.

"So here we go." Garcia wrote out the last name. She had the only really decent handwriting of the three of them.

Prentiss picked up the names and reviewed them to make sure no one was forgotten. Seven names were listed and she started to cut apart the strips. "5…6…7, there." As she counted she palmed the one with HOTCH on it, the rest went into a brown paper bag she'd brought from home, sometime in the last 4 months. "Okay you choose one JJ."

JJ reached into the bag, she grinned widely. "Perfect." She enthused.

"Who'd you get? Who'd you get?" Garcia nearly jumped up and down in her seat.

"Don't you want to know!" JJ put the slip of paper in her cleavage.

"What if Will finds it there?"

"Ain't gonna happen."

"C'mon JJ I'll tell you." Garcia all but whined.

"Don't forget thirty dollar limit." Prentiss laid out the rules. "And you can't get your own name."

JJ winked at her.

Garcia had a moment's pause. "We'll try to have the party after the FBI party on Friday. I might try to get Dave to have it at his house. But who knows with the cases coming in like they are; now it might end up anywhere."

Prentiss rose, "Pick a card, PG." She wafted the bag near Garcia. Garcia reached in, took a slip of paper and grinned.

Prentiss held back her own curiosity for who was on the paper. Not that she didn't want to know, she really did, but she knew she'd figure it out when the exchanges were made.

JJ stood, "Oh damn, uh, guys, there's a case, conference room- like ten minutes ago."

The three of them moved quickly and started the walk down the hall as quickly as they could.

Dave stepped from his office to be caught up in the small platoon of women. He wasn't about to complain.

"Oh Dave, here, Secret Santa thirty buck limit- Friday before Christmas." Prentiss offered the bag of names.

He reached in. "Not many left."

Prentiss grinned, "We took all the good ones already."

Dave secretly looked at who was on the tag. "No you didn't. This is going to be fun."

"Who…" Prentiss stopped herself. "It's all supposed to be a secret. Though we do all end up profiling the gifts."

"I wouldn't expect anything else."

"What've you got there, Princess?" Morgan joined the small throng.

"Oooooh Secret Santa, pick one." Garcia jumped in, she pushed Emily's arm- bag included- toward Morgan.

"Same limit, etc.?"

"Same old tradition, be creative in thirty dollars."

Morgan laughed. "Excellent." He hid his slip of paper.

In the conference room she handed Hotch the bag, "Sorry boss you're almost the last to choose a name for the Secret Santa."

Hotch shrugged, "It'll be fine. Did you include the director?"

Prentiss colored. "Uh no, we thought the seven of us? Maybe late Friday at Dave's…" She smiled at him, hopeful.

"Uh, yeah, if nothing else is going on." Dave stuttered. "We can order in?"

"Sounds good, let's see where we are with the consults we're working on." Hotch nodded.

Reid skidded around the corner into the room and stopped short when everyone looked up at him. He looked at his watch. "I swear I have two minutes, why are you all here already?"

Prentiss shook her head, she used Reid's entrance as the distraction needed to slip the paper back into the bag that she had palmed earlier. "Don't worry, it was Christmas business. You're not late, but you are last." She lifted the bag with a shake.

Hotch gave her a sharp look, he'd thought he'd taken the last slip, but he just shook off the feeling.

"Oh." Reid read the name. "Oh, good. I think." He hid the slip of paper in his waistcoat pocket.

Garcia launched into the case.

"Biloxi, Mississippi- the town is just starting to recover from the oil spill, when suddenly they start fishing up corpses from the coast line. As I'm sure you can guess, the locals aren't thrilled for the press." Garcia mentioned. She refused to look back at the corpses shown on the screen. "So far there are 3 dead, the police did a great job identifying the remains, they came back to three missing person reports filed over the last five years. The newest was from this summer."

Reid scanned through the case file before he looked back up to Garcia, "Are there any relations between the victims?"

"There are, but the problem is that doesn't help limit the suspect pool too much. Biloxi is a regular Reno, small town mentality with a bigger population. Two of the victims were cousins, one was a friend of the first victim. They suspect this is related to a meth ring but… well, that's because most of their violent crimes are either drug related or domestic abuse."

Rossi flipped his page, "They don't look like long-term users. Sandy Burkes here was attending Undergraduate at State, fast on track for valedictorian when the semester ended, and her cousin Kim Burkes graduated from a private college in three years… on the dean's list. Sapphire Walsh also attended State, but wasn't on the honor-roll, sports scholarship though."

"So three talented young women who each had a connection to the other die and are disposed of in the same location. Cause of death…?" Hotch mentioned as he paged over to the coroner's report.

Reid cut in before Garcia had the images up, "Stages of decomposition make the exact ruling uncertain, but strangulation occurred in all three victims, whether it was cause of death is undetermined though. Three broken hyoid bones suggest the unsub manually strangled them. Victim one shows signs of being in the water for at least a year and was almost completely skeletonized when she was found, interestingly enough she still had on her jewelry and clothes which they used to identify her and showed signs of exposure to petroleum; which, thanks to the leak, indicates she's been there at least prior to the spill. Also of note, the oil was sufficient enough of a deterrent for the marine-life where her body was relatively protected. The second victim also shows signs of petroleum and was probably in the water shortly before the spill occurred, the third victim was approximated to have been in the water for about three months, there's no sign of petroleum residues, her soft tissue was mostly destroyed by returning marine life, which is probably how they were found. The police dredged the suspected area where the bodies were prior to discovery and found three industrial drums with indications of human decomposition within the barrels."

"Ew, and on that note, pictures. I'll keep my eyes closed until you're all done looking." Garcia said; her left hand went to cover her bespectacled eyes.

JJ crossed her arms, "So the clothing they were found in was the clothing they were last seen wearing?"

Garcia nodded all while covering her eyes, "Yes. Each missing persons report was filled out by mutual friends, but there's no overlap as to the reporter."

"What made the police suspect drug involvement?" Rossi chimed, he leaned forward, "Each of these girls were found with an engagement ring. Do we know anything about their fiancés?"

"Fiancé, actually." Reid looked over the remains closely, he strained his eyes. "It …looks like this might fall under that second criterion. Have they questioned the fiancé in regards to all of his run-away brides? If they did, I wonder if they asked why he beat them. Two of them show signs of a spiral-fracture in various states of healing. The third victim had her ribs broken on separate occasions."

"Garcia, contact the Biloxi police and have them fax over their records. I want everyone to look over this file and look at any other possible connections in case the fiancé didn't kill them."

**CM**

Morgan looked at the calendar in shock at where the week had went despite the week of consultations. He adjusted his red sweater which made him feel more like Reid than himself, but the Christmas Party dictated a certain level of cooperative fashion. Prentiss was in a slinky red number that she apparently smuggled in with her purse because that had NOT been what she wore at the office. JJ wore a similar shade of red with her silk blouse and black pencil skirt, the boots and belt would make any Mrs. Claus envious. Rossi wore an emerald green dress shirt with his dressed-down grey slacks. Hotch wore a red tie, which Morgan supposed counted. Reid though, if he hadn't found the ugliest damned Christmas sweater in the world, it was a close second.

He looked back down at his own sweater and suddenly didn't feel half as bad about it as he could have. He was sure reindeer AND eggnog was somehow added into the color-palette of that hideous sweater.

He rolled his eyes and merely smiled at his coworkers as they piled into the elevator on the way out the door.

The Company Christmas Party was everything to be expected, a bunch of suits busied themselves in chats with politically motivated partners, Hotch had been blitzed by the White Collar department as they tried to woo him over, and half a dozen hopeful cadets who didn't have a shot in the dark to get in for at least another five years- and that was being kind. Reid was in conversations with the archivists and cold-case divisions, each in search of their own answers for case-work that the BAU could help in…

Rossi had been cornered by Strauss who had somehow been scandalized that he was thinking of writing a book about a case still pending trial, not like he'd told her out-right he was waiting to write it once he completed his own testimonials… JJ and Prentiss were being schmoozed by the higher-ups thanks to their recent relations with the DOD, Garcia, with her Christmas bulb earrings and over-the-top festive outfit (that still looked better and less tacky then Reid's sweater, what the hell was he thinking, seriously?) was locked in intense conversations with other analysts about the importance of …he wasn't going to lie, he really didn't follow what they were talking about, but it was definitely shop.

Morgan busied himself with all the new pots of honey the academy had deemed fit. He even spotted Ashley and said his hellos before he returned to the potential after-after party girls.

By 10 the party had wound its way down and the BAU excused themselves to a bit better spiked-eggnog, somehow Reid became the DD… which, by Morgan's standard was a horrible, horrible mistake. He drove the same speed as his grandma had on her hover-round, and yet they all got to Rossi's safe and sound if not thirty minutes later than normal.

**CM**

Rossi punched in his code for the front door and the seven of them seemed to tumble in. He moved them all into the sitting room and turned on the music and a moment later the fireplace. He'd had the place decorated for Christmas in a sparkling blue.

He busied himself seeing that everyone had a drink and organizing the Secret Santa presents near the tree. Rossi sighed contentedly, glad that his work family took this time to be together. He smiled at Garcia for her persistence and Hotch for his team building.

"Well Hotch thought it'd be a good idea to hang Christmas lights on the gutters of the house. It would have worked out pretty well, only Hotch's arm was still in a sling and of course Jack isn't allowed on ladders, and apparently neither am I."

Hotch broke in, "So all our decorations are at the height Reid can reach without a ladder. Luckily when he fell he didn't wrench up his knee, I don't think I'd have been very good at the fireman carry with my arm like that."

The group exploded with laughter, they could each completely imagine the amazing traditional home half decorated. They loved the idea.

"Jack loves it. He was asking about getting Rose into antlers for some photo op. Not gonna happen, doesn't matter how much the kid butters me up." Rossi added.

"How is Jack?" Prentiss asked.

"He's doing great," Rossi laughed, "I think he wants to be a doctor. He can go into practice just taking care of his dad and Reid."

"And the coaching?"

Rossi shrugged, it was a signature look. "They run, they score."

Morgan turned to JJ, "How's Henry, last time I saw him he was twice the size of before. Can he vote yet?"

"He's amazing, you know how we worried he wasn't talking much…?"

Garcia nodded, she'd been on the receiving end of several frantic phone calls.

"Well we didn't need to worry, apparently he didn't have anything to say and now he's talking all the time. Non-stop."

Hotch flashed a smile. "I think Jack came out mumbling."

"Emily, do you hear from Declan?" Rossi asked.

"I do, he emails every week at least, which is great for a teenager. He's very normal, thankfully. He's another soccer player."

Rossi stood by the fire and looked into his glass of wine. "Here's to us, may all our Christmases be happy."

"To family, to us." Hotch raised his glass, he'd switched to soda because the entire group decided he'd be the designated driver after Rossi's.

They drank.

"Can we do presents now?" Reid whined jokingly.

"Eat first, presents later." Rossi admonished.

Rossi hadn't ordered in, he'd prepared the dinner the night before. He claimed the flavors would marry better the next day anyway.

"Dave this is amazing." Hotch said, mouth full of pasta.

Reid scrutinized the pasta and salad.

"Eat it." Dave said.

"I'm not really hungry..."

"Aww, I think Reid's too excited to eat." Morgan chided, he mussed up Reid's hair playfully.

"What are you _twelve_?"

Reid ate if only to get the focus off him. "Oh man, this is so good."

JJ laughed. "You _are_ twelve."

Fully sated, most of the group returned to the sitting room. Hotch busied himself as he cleared the table while Prentiss and JJ started to load the dishwasher.

"Hey you guys, I can do that in the morning." Rossi called to them.

Hotch shook his head, "It'd be awful in the morning. Besides I know where things go."

It was well after midnight and Christmas Eve when they were finally all in the sitting room and near the tree.

Someone had set a Santa Hat of Hotch's head, and to all their surprise, he'd left it on. Garcia turned to Rossi, "You get to deliver presents."

"Ho, ho, ho." Rossi handed him the first. He read the label. "To Emily From Your Secret Santa."

Emily actually giggled. "Thank you, should I open it?" She gave a wide, flirty smile.

The group nodded and watched.

She ripped through the paper. "Oh my God, Godiva!" She ripped the gold outer cover and found her absolute favorite crème de menthe. "Heaven." She passed the box to JJ. "Please save me from myself have one, pass it around."

They all laughed and Morgan started in as he pretended to take a handful, but settled for only one.

"To Rossi, From Secret-Santa."

Rossi lifted the wrapped box, rattled it near his ear.

"Did you want the bomb squad first?" Reid laughed, he thumbed in Morgan's direction.

He started to carefully undo the bow.

"Rossi if you don't tear into that, I'll help you," Prentiss laughed.

Everyone agree, "Tear it."

So he did. "Did you use enough tape?" He queried, finally he burst into the box. "An apron, man I needed _that_ an hour ago." The Apron was white and across the front said "Kiss me I'm Italian" in tricolor. Morgan hopped up and laid one on Dave. The team roared with laughter.

"Never ask." Morgan laughed.

Rossi colored but laughed uproariously, "I'll have to find a time to use it."

"To Morgan, Care of Secret Santa."

Morgan looked at the tiny box. "Okay?"

Reid looked thrilled. "Oh what is it?"

Morgan shook his head, "Give me a minute, kid." He made short work of the wrapping paper. "Oh man an MP3 speaker and dock. Thanks Santa."

Everyone nodded at the choice.

"For Garcia From Secret Santa."

"Another small box," Garcia smiled, then frowned, "What can this be?"

"Well, open it and find out." Reid encouraged.

Penelope slipped a fingernail under the tape, inside was a gorgeous set of hoop earrings. Upon closer inspection she realized they were blue-steel handcuff earrings accurately sized, she laughed with pleasure. "_Per~fect_." Garcia purred and gave Morgan a wink. The others rolled their eyes.

"So Morgan got Garcia, huh?" Reid asked Prentiss under his breath. His ears perked as a box was dropped into his lap, special delivery one Agent Rossi.

"To Reid from his Secret Santa."

"It's not from you is it?" He whispered to Hotch, Hotch shook his head no. "But you wouldn't tell anyway." He said to the room.

"Whatcha got there, Pretty Boy?" Morgan smirked.

He tore through the paper to a nondescript white shirt-box. "Hmmm." He quickly untaped it, took a look inside and closed the cover, his face quickly turned shades of pink. "Uh, thanks?" He looked right at Morgan.

Garcia bent from her seat on the sofa to where Reid sat on the floor. "I wanna see, I wanna see."

Prentiss touched her arm and shook her head. "You probably don't."

"It's a calendar." Reid was now radish red. He handed the package to Garcia. He didn't think he could re-gift something like _that_.

Garcia sneaked a peek. "Oh. My. GOD. That is so hot."

Morgan smiled even wider which drew a look from Hotch. "What? What did you get?"

JJ took the gift from Garcia's hands and handed it to Hotch. Hotch opened it and couldn't decide if he should laugh, choke or kill Morgan out-right as the correct response. Rossi, who stood at his shoulder blocked the choke and kill responses off the table. The kicked-puppy look Reid would give him if he laughed left him to clear his throat.

"Titan Men isn't our normal choice." Reid finally said, his voice squeaked slightly.

"But the calendar is good." Prentiss was laughing out of control now. "MMMM Hairy Men of 2012." She turned to Morgan. "You _do_ know that TLA is going to be emailing you every week now."

Morgan tried for innocent.

Rossi picked up the last Secret Santa and read off. "Hotch, From your Secret Santa."

Hotch leaned back against an armchair and carefully and quickly was into the gift. "Oh wow," he said quietly. "Perfect, thank you." It was the newly released re-mastered the Beatles White Album CD. Reid grinned at him, it'd taken him days to figure out what to get, then he'd seen Garcia look at a list on her computer. He inquired what she was checking out and found that Prentiss had a list on Amazon. So that night he'd checked out to see if Aaron had an email list on his personal email, and was thrilled to discover he did have one. _And_ the CD was something he'd put on that list within weeks.

"This has been great," Hotch smiled. "I…I want to thank you all, we're an amazing team. I wanted to get you all something."

Rossi who, at some time during the gift exchange had gone off for a minute, had returned with a pile of boxes. He handed them all to Hotch. JJ nudged his shoulder. "Hotch's gift was spot on."

"Really? You get him this year?"

"…No, I thought you…?"

Hotch's voice cut over their shrouded whispers.

"There's one for everyone." Hotch started to hand out the boxes. There was even one for him that had Rossi's name as the 'from'.

When everyone had a personalized box, Hotch gave a slight nod. And with the abandon of a group of 6 year olds, everyone on the team tore into the boxes.

Hotch had gotten them all new FBI jackets.

"It took me forever to check all of your existing jackets for sizes."

They all grinned at him. Garcia tried hers on, which got the rest of them to put theirs on as well. They looked like a baseball team.

Hotch grinned at them all happily.

And just then his phone started to vibrate, as he reached his, the myriad of ringtones flooded the room. Rossi let out a sigh.

"Perfect timing." Escaped between a groan.

"We have a case, kidnapping, we're still inside the golden window. A witness saw the abduction an hour ago. We're headed to LA, hope you all have your go-bags handy."

**TBC, Merry CMas.**


End file.
